Book Notices

46 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION don in a small tract of 1681 entitled, Testimonys from the Inhabitants of New Jersey and other Eminent Persons Who have Wrote Particularly Concerning that Place. This pamphlet of 32 pages is now very rare. Seven of the fifteen letters in it were published in 1765 in Smith's History of the Colony of Nova-Caesarm, or New Jersey. The other nine letters are now reprinted, and will be hereafter much more accessible to students of history. A glowing account of New Jersey by Thomas Harrison in 1681 is as follows : " This is a pleasant country, the woods like a garden, for all sorts of flowers and herbs grow in them, and strawberries and other fruits in abundance; and our land far exceeds England for one thing; for three pecks of wheat will sow an acre of this land, which [while] in England two bushels will hardly do it. I cannot express all things that we have in this country " (p. 528) . —In Anglia, Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie, Bd. XLIII, Heft 1, there is an article by Dr. Walther Fischer, of Giessen, Germany, entitled " Zur Textgeschichte von Thomas Elwoods Davideis (1712-1796)." The first edition of Elwood's religious epic bore the following title : " Davideis, The Life of David, King of Israel: A Sacred Poem: in Five Books." By Thomas Ellwood. London: Printed and Sold by the Assigns of J. Sowie, in White-Hart-Court in Gracious-street. 8vo. 1712.—Dr. Fischer has made his study of the various editions with typical German thoroughness. Among other things he has located, with the aid of American correspondents, several American editions of Davideis, in addition to the two mentioned in Smith's Catalogue. BOOK NOTICES Books of interest to Friends may usually be purchased at the following places : Friends' Book Store, 302 Arch Street, Philadelphia. Friends' Central Bureau, 1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia. Friends' Book and Tract Committee, 144 East 20th Street, N. Y. C. Friends' Book and Supply House, Richmond, Indiana. Friends' Book Centre, Friends House, Euston Road, London, N. W. 1, England. Account of Conferences held, and Treaties made, between Major-General Sir William Johnson, Bart, and the chief Sachems and Warriours of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senekas (etc. . . .), Indian Nations in North America, at their Meetings on different Occasions at Fort Johnson in the County of Albany, in the Colony of New York, in the Years 1755 and 1756. . . . Also an Appendix containing an account of Conferences BOOK NOTICES47 between several Quakers in Philadelphia, and some of the Heads of the Six Nations, in April 1756. London: Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand. 1756.—Reprinted, February, 1930, from the original in the library of Thea Heye, New York City. Privately printed for Mrs. George G. Heye, 912 Fifth Avenue, New York City. This reprint of a rare and valuable booklet is beautifully done on a paper that would seem to be everlasting. The importance of the booklet for Quaker history is, of course, the Appendix, telling of the conferences between Friends and the Indians at the home of Israel Pemberton in Philadelphia in 1756. At the first conference the following Friends were present : Abraham Farrington, Joshua Dixon, Israel Pemberton, Mary Pemberton , Owen Jones, Anthony Benezet, and James Pemberton. At subsequent conferences the above Friends were joined by many others. There were apparently ten or a dozen Indians present, representing the Six Nations. The chief interpreter was Conrad Weiser. These conferences were held early in the French and Indian Wars when the Delaware and Shawnese Indians had been raiding settlements on the frontiers of Pennsylvania. Friends were seeking to get the aid of the Six Nations in quieting the Indians of the frontier who had long been subject to the Six Nations. Barnhill, Celeste Terrell. Joseph West and Jane Owen. Greenfield, Indiana: William Mitchell Printing Company. 1930. Pp. 102. This is a genealogical compilation " to rescue from obscurity the name of Joseph West, brother of Benjamin West, the artist, and oldest child of John and Sarah Pearson West, of Chester (now Delaware) county, Pennsylvania ." The material in the book is the result of industrious research, and much of it consists of reprints...